The invention relates to a locking device, particularly for washing machine doors and includes a plunger accommodated in a housing and displaceable between two end positions and an electromagnet affecting the position of the plunger.
Electrically operated locking devices, which are used particularly in washing machine doors, are known, for example from German Laid-Open Application (Offenlegungsschrift) No. 2,258,812. The known locking devices have a housing to accommodate the electrical and mechanical switching components as well as a plunger which is usually displaceable transversely to the longitudinal direction of the housing and which constitutes the actual locking member. In most of the known locking devices, the plunger is displaced with the aid of bimetal strips. Additionally, in the device according to German Laid-Open Application No. 2,258,812, an electromagnet is provided which, when excited, rapidly displaces the plunger into the locked position. The mechanical arrest (locking) in this position is effected by an angle lever which during the displacement of the plunger is carried along by the force of a torsion spring. To the angle lever there is fastened a pin which, when the end position of the plunger has been reached, engages and locks behind a holding tongue. The plunger is pushed back into the unlocked position with the aid of a bimetal strip whose bending movement pushes back the above-mentioned holding tongue and thus unlocks the rotary lever together with the pin.
More recent models of washing machines employ semi-electronic or even fully electronic control circuits which operate, for example, with the aid of microprocessors. In circuits of this type also the locking device for the washing machine door receives the commands for locking and unlocking exclusively in the form of pulses.